The Gulfshore's Top Doctors 2013

Our annual list of Castle Connolly's picks for the most recommended physicians in Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties.

Gulfshore Life staff

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In Southwest Florida, we’ve grown accustomed to having the best of everything. From beaches to restaurants to entertainment, we want it to be first class all the way.

Why would our health be any different? That’s why Gulfshore Life partners with Castle Connolly Medical each year to bring our readers the list of the top doctors in our region. (For the qualifying criteria, please see “The Process” on p. 60.)

In addition, we’ve singled out four of these honored physicians who are in the vanguard of their particular specialties, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in modern medicine. These doctors, along with all those mentioned in the following pages and the countless more in Castle Connolly’s book America’s Top Doctors, available at castleconnolly.com, provide one more dimension to the very good life we enjoy here in Southwest Florida.

To learn more about Castle Connolly Medical or to buy the book, click here.

Give Him a Hand—and He’ll Fix It

DR. RONALDO CARNEIRO KNEW HE WANTED TO be a hand surgeon unusually early. He decided during his third year of medical school, in Brazil, while assisting a plastic surgeon with special interest in the hand.

“What fascinated me was the complexity of it,” Carneiro says, “and also the cooperation of patient with the doctor.”

A Top Doctor since 1999, Carneiro has published 70 articles and book chapters—and counting—in the relatively new field of hand surgery. He’s hosted five international conferences and delivered hundreds of presentations here and abroad.

Since settling in Collier County 13 years ago, he has performed more than 6,000 surgeries.

“It is incredible that I cannot go anywhere in this city, anywhere, that people don’t come to me and say, ‘Look!’” Carneiro says, waving his hands. “It’s extremely cool.”

His esteemed contributions include improving existing techniques and describing conditions that weren’t yet in the books. His latest article details his own creation, a way to treat certain wrist conditions without fusion.

“Fusion means you put in a plate and screws and you never move the wrist again,” he says.

He also developed a method of treating persistent tennis elbow by creating an entirely new origin of the involved tendon.

His techniques are disseminated by admiring students; though his official program dissolved due to decreased funding, Carneiro still has doctors visit independently from around the world, notably South and Central America, staying for a month or two to learn from the best.

And Carneiro truly is on top—this year, he was recognized among the top 1 percent of hand surgeons in the nation.

“I give a lot of credence to it because it was other doctors who voted me in,” he says. “But I like more the relationship of somebody saying, ‘Hey, Dr. Carneiro, look!’ than getting somebody writing that I’m good somewhere else. But it is still an honor.”